The development of scientific technology, which has been concentrated on expansion in terms of quantity, is gradually focused on the enhancement of life quality. Simultaneously, attempts to construct a more convenient and intelligent living environment by granting various recognition functions of human beings to creatures developed by human beings are being continued. Among such attempts, a robot engineering field is considered to be the core of high-tech application engineering. A demand for industrial and medical robots is being rapidly increasing.
Recently, domestic robots are also developed in addition to the industrial and medical robots. As for an example of the domestic robots with which people can easily come in contact, a robot cleaner is provided. The robot cleaner, which is one of moving robots, generally has flat and circular disk-shaped wheels and serves to suck foreign matters and dust while traveling around all the corners of a house.
Such a moving robot monitors a charging state of an internal battery for providing a supply voltage. When the charging of the battery is necessary, the moving robot moves to a charging apparatus for the moving robot such that the battery of the moving robot is charged by the charging apparatus. Then, the moving robot resumes the operation.
When the moving robot is charged, a high voltage of 25 to 40V is used. Therefore, when the moving robot comes in contact with a charging terminal of the charging apparatus, a high voltage may be momentarily applied so that a spark occurs. Thus, a circuit related to the battery charging may be damaged, and an electric shock may occur. To prevent such a spark from occurring, a method is usually used, in which only when the moving robot comes in contact with the charging apparatus to push the charging terminal to the inside of the charging apparatus, the charging terminal is contacted with an internal switch such that a charging voltage is supplied. That is, only when the moving robot pushes the charging terminal to the inside, the charging voltage is supplied to the charging terminal. When the moving robot does not come in contact with the charging apparatus, the charging voltage is not applied to the charging terminal. Accordingly, a safety degree increases.
In such a method, however, a person or pet as well as the moving robot happens to push the charging terminal. In this case, the charging voltage is applied to the charging terminal such that an electric shock may occur. Therefore, there are difficulties in securing stability.